EDITORS: Students who attended the conference are listed by hometown at the end of the release. If you would like to arrange an interview with a student from your area, contact Dan Krauth or Janet Mendler at (734) 764-7260.

ANN ARBOR—Thirty University of Michigan undergraduates shared their research with nearly 2,000 students from 400 different colleges throughout the country recently when they attended the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) at the University of Kentucky.

U-M students submitted research abstracts to NCUR, describing the research they are working on with U-M faculty. The students whose abstracts were selected are part of U-M’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) that creates research partnerships between first- and second-year students and faculty from all departments.

Fifteen U-M students delivered poster presentations of their research while the others presented oral presentations.

U-M sophomore Laura Breymann’s poster presentation described her tissue engineering research. “I was impressed by the number of professors throughout the country who were interested in my project and by the wide range of other projects presented,” Breymann said. Breymann, of Okemos, Mich., along with her faculty partner Scott Hollister, a biomedical engineer, is attempting to grow an actual bone.

“I realize how lucky we are to have a UROP program, because I met students from other schools who found it very rare to have one-on-one research projects with students and professors,” said Breymann. “Unlike U-M, many students from other universities had to hunt professors down to help them and they had to fund their research themselves.”

The U-M students who attended the national conference are listed below according to state and city location:

Name City StateAnand Reddi El Macero CACheryl Stimpson Ann Arbor MIJanuary Hainer Bloomfield Hills MILinda Nabha Dearborn MIBrandee Brewer Detroit MIAnne Nagrant Farmington Hills MIAnna Halbeisen Grand Blanc MILayla Carson Grand Rapids MIErik Epp Grand Rapids MIJanelle Marshall Jenison MIAgnieszka Trzcinka Macomb Township MIKristie Stoick North Branch MIJudith Racusin Oak Park MILaura Breymann Okemos MIAlisha Vachhani Owosso MIPeter Huff Petoskey MIMegan Bidgoli Saginaw MIAssuntina Sacco Shelby Township MITiffany Buckley Southfield MIDeborah Ross St. Clair MIMichael Kramer Sterling Heights MIEbere Azumah Taylor MIMichael Giventhal W. Bloomfield MIJulie Rosenthal Minneapolis MNPatricia Brueckne Madison NJJoshua Sellers Syracuse NYDavid Lu Woodside NYSumon Dantiki Cleveland OHNicole Gardner Newton PAGayatri Rao India

For more information on NCUR and the U-M UROP program, contact Sandra Gregerman, director of U-M’s UROP at: (734) 647-2768; [email protected]

National Conference on Undergraduate ResearchUndergraduate Research Opportunity ProgramScott Hollister[email protected]